Capital None

[yakko]

Capital One sent me what I'll call "the love letter." It was different from the last one, which simply hiked APRs for cash advances and defaults (things I never use anyway, nor would I ever use if I got in trouble). Today's love letter is The Big One

Comments

[damnitnicole]

I've heard nothing but horror stories for the past 10 years about Capital One credit cards. This is not surprising.

Then again, Citibank did much the same thing to me recently, so really, it's just all going to hell.

[yakko]

Ahahaha Citi. I thank AT&T Universal Card Services for closing my account before Citi bought them. :oD

[damnitnicole]

I like my Citicard quite a bit, mostly. I'm just not a fan of my interest rate getting jacked like it did. Now, I have to deal with the hassle of finding a different card with them for a lower rate.

[yakko]

Of course, I'm laughing cause Citi was responsible for about half of my junk mail at one point in time.

[toonygal]

But...if you always pay your bills on time it doesn't matter what your APR is, right? Unless, I guess I must be missing something here.

[yakko]

See, that's the thing. I could have just accepted the new, shitty terms, and there are plenty of others that would, but I think it's poor business practice to take the loss out of the hides of responsible cardholders and insult their intelligence. What next, a credit line decrease? It's Capital One's treatment of good customers that rubs me the wrong way, so I declined their new terms.

While it's true that an APR increase wouldn't really affect me as long as I pay in full, if I ever needed to carry a balance in the future, I'd get zapped.

[shelbystripes]

Discover just did something similar to me. They changed me from a 10.99% fixed to a variable (currently 13.99%) and sent me a letter stating that I could decline the increase, in which case they would close the account.

Around the same time, I noticed they upped the increment for redeeming cash back rewards. Where I could use my bonus in $20 increments before, they upped it to $50, so that I'd have to save up $50 worth of bonus cash in order to redeem it.

Higher rates, variable rates, and making me save up more to use my bonus? That sounds like a card cancellation to me.

[yakko]

Discover, after not lowering my interest rate from about 16% and then wondering why I didn't use the card, closed my account for lack of use. :o)

[lcremeans]

This sort of crap is why I got my current credit card through my credit union. They had the best deal by far on a low-limit secured card (17.50% fixed -- yes, that's low for a secured card -- and no annual fee). So far, I've been quite happy with it.

Also, I got a secured card because until then, I had no credit record -- the last college loan I had was paid off in 2000.

[yakko]

I could probably join the credit union through my employer and get a card that doesn't suck. It wouldn't have a super-low APR or a high credit limit, but it wouldn't suck. And it'd be through people who generally don't suck.